Joey Logano is the most accomplished driver in the current NASCAR Cup Series field. He has three championships to his name and is poised to increase that tally over the coming years. But he wasn’t this extremely mature and skilled driver always. Speaking on “Donut Podcasts” last month, he explained how he had gotten a strong reality check as a teenager moving up in the world.
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Logano had begun his racing career at the age of six. He started off racing quarter midgets and then moved to Late Models. Up until the age of 18, he cruised forward with insane momentum and won every challenge that was put in front of him. This dominance inevitably led him to higher levels of the sport. But at the helm of it all was his most trying test.
He said, “You get to the top level and all those kids that just won because they were good are at the same level. That’s when the real work starts. You got to be able to be better. So, to the point of being a good loser, I was not then. I didn’t even know what to do. I was just getting beat and I was like, ‘Okay, this has never happened before.”
The early hurdles that Logano faced in his career
There was never a question about how talented Logano was. He made history by becoming the youngest ever Cup Series winner in 2009 at the tender age of 19. But a lack of leadership and assertiveness hit him like a block and delayed his growth. His immaturity resulted in him not being able to consistently fight for wins.
Also, he was a driver for Joe Gibbs Racing in the initial years of his Cup Series career. The setup in that camp hadn’t been ideal for a rookie driver who was still learning the ropes. The team recognized this as well and decided to let him go at the end of the 2012 season. While this disappointed him much, he soon found another home with Team Penske and the rest is history.
